Dusk by Samuels Matthew

Author:Samuels, Matthew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Kael’s chest had started to ache. He’d had a headache for a couple of days, and could feel the tension in his stomach. Since arriving on the tubeway, it’d risen through him and formed an unpleasant knot of tension towards the top of his chest. He could feel it all the time, and it was giving him a sense of dread, although obviously, this mission was doing that all by itself as well.

Thankfully, Alessia had eventually agreed that having Caroline outside in an unknown, sentient alien environment – more than sentient, really – was too great a risk to continue. He watched as Caroline carefully retraced her steps, re-attaching her tether before walking back along the tubeway and re-entering the car.

“Nothing to it,” she said, poking her head through the hatch into the cockpit, as Kael felt a microscopic amount of tension leave his shoulders. He could have sworn that she sounded a little bit less self-assured than usual, but he didn’t say anything.

“Good,” Alessia replied. “Kael, unless you think we need to explore further, I think we should rig two tethered drones in front of us and get going. Do you think we can extend the sensory range at all?”

Kael started. “Yeah, two drones is a good idea,” he said. “It’ll drain fuel faster, but we’re kitted for it. Can you sort that out and I’ll handle the sensors?”

“On it,” she said, sliding out of the cockpit. “Caroline, can you keep an eye on things while I’m outside?”

“Want me with you, sweets?” the bodyguard called from the galley.

Alessia thought about it for a moment. “No,” she said. “It all seems safe enough. Cover me from the car.”

“Roger that.”

“Alessia, you can do it all from inside the car!” Kael called after her, turning in his chair.

“I know, I know,” she said, and he felt a surge of irritation at her glibness. Yes, of course nothing bad had happened so far, but they were still technically in space, and cars didn’t mix well with space. Everyone knew that. Why was Alessia being so nonchalant about it all?

He distantly registered the airlock closing, and turned back to his calibrations. Technically, the car’s systems existed in a well-calibrated equilibrium, agreed on by Lyra’s engineers and technicians, but all crews did their own fine-tuning within certain safety limits. As Kael began to tinker, the car’s own power consumption monitoring systems began to complain about the imbalance that the modifications would cause, but he just managed to stay within the amber lines. He was sure that Slyph would have been able to do a better job of it, but he’d been living and working in the car for over a decade.

A short while later, he leant back and checked his work just as the airlock re-opened; the sensors would now give them more range than they’d ever done in the past, in all directions, so with any luck, they should be able to divert in the event that an asteroid broke free from the rings, or an atmospheric anomaly registered in the tubeway.

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